Shoulder to Cry On
by sincerelymendacious
Summary: Hey, Crystal, speaking of your needs, if you need a shoulder to cry on, why don't you try mine?


It was Nils' lucky day.

It was lucky because there was only one person in front of him in the phone line. Using the phone at camp was always a drag, because the camp had only one phone available for the twenty campers to use. Cell phones, like the one that Nils' parents had bought him for his birthday, were banned, and his had been confiscated mere seconds after he had stepped off the bus. Right now, his flip phone was sitting in a locked box inside the janitor's hut, alongside Kitty's and Franke's. Rumor had it that Maloof Canola was working on a scheme to smuggle phones into the camp, but it was only a rumor for now.

And so, Nils was forced to use the phone in the Coach's tree house, just like everybody else. The Coach had a strict list of rules for that phone. It could only be used between the hours of three and six, after classes but before dinner. The Coach was present for all calls, and there was a time limit of twenty minutes per call- ten if there was someone else waiting in line. Those waiting must stand four feet away from the person making the call, and if they overstepped that by even an inch they were thrown out for an hour. This rule made no sense to Nils, because he wouldn't be able to hear anything the caller ahead of him was saying anyway, because the Coach always threw a sound-proof shield around any camper using the phone. He did this to prevent the campers from eavesdropping on each other (although they were given no privacy from the Coach himself, as he was always present within the shield).

The last time that Nils had tried to use the phone he'd been stuck behind Quentin and Vernon, two dudes. Quentin had wrapped his call up pretty quickly, but Vernon…ugh. He hadn't been able to hear a word that Vernon had said, but the kid's body language alone was enough to put anybody to sleep. To make matters worse, the Coach had nodded off before Vernon's ten minutes had been up, and thus Vernon had been able to go on and on past the ten minutes he 'd been allotted. Only God knew how long Vernon had stood there yammering- Nils had walked off, knowing that it was hopeless once the Coach had fallen asleep.

Since today was Nils' lucky day, Vernon was nowhere to be seen, and Crystal Flowers Snagrash was in his place. Of all the lovely ladies currently residing at this camp, she was the most receptive to his advances, in that she was the only one who hadn't outright told him to get lost. Most of his flirting seemed to go over her head (or she pretended that it did, anyway), but sometimes he'd say something that would turn her whole face a pretty shade of pink. And then she'd change the subject, a look in her bright blue eyes that said that she wasn't quite convinced that he wasn't making fun of her.

He couldn't see those eyes right now. Her back was turned to him, her shoulders slumping as her fingers toyed with the phone cord. She'd been talking for longer than ten minutes, but the Coach hadn't tried to stop her, regarding her with uncharacteristic concern. Nils walked back outside and took a good look around the cabins. It was getting close to six o'clock, and most of the campers were heading towards the main lodge. From what he could see, nobody else was around. It really was Nils' lucky day. Catching Crystal alone was a rare thing- if she wasn't accompanied by her cheering buddy Clem, then she was usually found hanging around Phoebe or Elka (ugh). She was by herself now, however, and there was no way that Nils Lutefisk was going to let an opportunity like this pass him by.

She was just hanging up as he re-entered the tree house. He watched as she gave a brief wave to the Coach before turning around to leave, moving so quickly that the Coach barely had time to take his shields down. She rushed passed Nils without acknowledging his presence, which struck him as strange. He'd never seen her just ignore anybody before; she was always the first person to wave or say 'good morning'. Something was definitely up.

He followed her out of the Coach's tree house, not surprised to see that she was almost halfway down the ramp already (Crystal was almost as fast as her partner-in-cheer when she wanted to be). "Crystal," he called, trying to catch up to her. "Wait up!"

She stopped upon hearing her name, unable to ignore anybody calling her no matter how distraught she was. She turned as he walked down to meet her where she stood, her cheerful smile not quite reaching her eyes. "Hi Nils!" she greeted brightly. She waved at him rapidly with one hand while the other twisted the hem of her shirt nervously. "Its-I'm sorry I took so long on the phone! I should…" The hand that had been waving dropped to her side and began mimicking its counterpart. "I should really be more considerate of others," she finished weakly.

"It's cool," Nils said, noting that her eyes were more watery than usual. "I just wanted to make sure that you were okay," he said, a little awkwardly. He was not used to showing genuine concern for others (and he was concerned, even if he was technically using the situation to his benefit- Crystal was a nice girl and he liked her as much as anyone else did). "You seemed kinda down."

"Down? Me? No way!" She tried to laugh then, but something went wrong and it came out sounding more strained than it should have. "You know me! I'm having way too much fun with everybody here to be down." Her voice broke when she said 'everybody', but the tears in her eyes remained unshed.

Nils was not the most empathetic person around, but even he could see that Crystal was lying and that she was more down than he had ever seen her. What had happened during that phone call? Had she received some bad news? Nils' telepathy wasn't as good as his clairvoyance, and Crystal always kept her most personal thoughts under heavy shields. He considered just asking her what the problem was, but he rejected that idea, knowing that she'd just brush the question off. "You heading to dinner?" he asked instead. "We could go together."

"That sounds really great!" she replied, her cheeks turning pink. "Really! But…I wasn't going to dinner."

"No? That sucks," he said. "We could've sat together at that one table in the back." He grinned salaciously. "You know, that small one in the corner. The one with only two seats."

"The rickety one?" she asked innocently.

Nils stopped himself from sighing. Once again, his insinuations had flown right over her head. Well, whatever. "So where were you going?"

"Back to the cabins," she answered, her smile finally faltering. "I have…I need to…um." Her hands flapped vaguely in front of her, as though the motions could remind her of what exactly it was that she needed to do. "I have to do something."

It really was Nils' lucky day. The two of them alone in a cabin (the girl's cabin no less) was way better than a shaky table in the main lodge where anyone could just walk up and interrupt. He had to take this opportunity; he'd be a fool to pass it up. "I'll walk you there," he offered, and, acting like the idea had just popped into his head, added "maybe we could hang out. Just the two of us." He put extra emphasis on those last three words.

She was silent for a moment, searching his eyes for the mockery that she always expected to be there. He almost shrank back- he was not used to her sort of gentle scrutiny- but he stood his ground. She was always so uncertain of other people, and she legitimately had difficulty believing that he'd actually want to spend time with her. Which was a bummer, because she was a fine lady, and a fine lady like her shouldn't think that way about herself.

Her gaze drifted from him to the Coach's tree house up above. "Weren't you going to make a phone call?" she asked. "I think the Coach is going to close his office soon."

Phone call? Oh, right. The only reason that this encounter had even happened was because he'd been trying to get in contact with his dad. His plan was to smuggle a DVD copy of _Roadhouse_ into the camp (cleverly placed in an innocent looking _Shrek_ case) and he just needed his dad to send it. But _Roadhouse_ could wait- he might never get a chance like this again. "No worries," he said smoothly. "It wasn't important." He reached out and offered his hand to her. "Shall we?"

She looked to him, than down at his hand, and then back up at him before smiling and placing her small hand in his, the touch sending a warm jolt up his arm. Her smile was weak, close-lipped, and looked like it could be wiped away by any small thing, but it was real, and that made it better than all of her big, fake smiles combined. "Okay," she said, her sweet voice barely audible. And off they went.

* * *

"So you're, like," Nils said, seated on Crystal's bunk bed. "You're leaving."

Crystal, kneeling down on the floor next to an open duffel bag, nodded, her face blank. The duffel bag was half-full of clothes that she had haphazardly shoved into it, and right now Crystal was telekinetically dragging items out from underneath her bunk. So far she'd uncovered her Discman, a compilation of Pat Benatar's greatest hits, and what looked like some sort of shiv made out of Jolly Ranchers which she had immediately put back (it must have belonged to her bunkmate). At no point had Nils offered to help, as he was too stunned to even think.

This had not been what he expected when he entered the girl's cabin with her. He had expected to her to start crying about how one of her pets back home had died, or about a fight that she had had over the phone with her mom. He would've played the role of comforting friend, which would have given him a clear path to first base. Instead she was robotically packing all of her stuff up while he sat on her bed with no idea what to say.

A bottle of peppy pink nail polish rolled out from under the bed and hit his foot. Recognizing it as the same color currently coating Elka's nails, he sullenly kicked it. It skittered across the room. Crystal didn't seem to notice. "But why?" he asked once he found his voice. "Why do you have to go?"

"Because my mom needs me at home," Crystal replied simply, her voice devoid of emotion. She was twining the wires of her headphones around the Discman, looking away from him.

"Needs you for what?" Did something happen?"

"No," Crystal said as she put the Discman into a side pocket. "She just wants me with her."

"Okay…" It felt like he was missing something here. Why was Crystal's mom making her leave camp so suddenly, and for seemingly no reason? He had a feeling that he wouldn't get a straight answer out of her if he asked her this, so he focused on something else. "How are you going to get back home? Don't you live in like…Illinois?" Her mom would've had days of driving ahead of her even if she had left the moment she had hung up on her daughter.

"She's coming to get me," Crystal said as she gathered up her CDs. "She told me that she'll be here in a few days." She paused, and then rested the CDs on her lap. "I guess…I guess I didn't have to start packing right now, huh?"

"No, guess not," Nils said, for lack of anything better coming to mind.

"I just didn't know what else to do. Stupid of me…" she said, her voice trailing off into a whisper.

"You're not stupid," Nils countered, "you're just preparing early." He blew his bangs out of his face. "Ah, man," he said as he lay back down on the bed, his feet dangling over the edge of the bunk. "This sucks."

He couldn't see her, but he could hear her sigh in what he thought was agreement. "Clem's gonna be really bummed out," he pointed out thoughtlessly.

"I'm really going to miss him," she choked out before she burst into tears.

"Oh, shit!" Nils said as he shot upright, only now realizing that that probably wasn't the best thing to have said to her right now. Maybe Elka was right about him being insensitive. "I'm…sorry?"

"How am I going to tell him?" she sobbed, fat tears rolling down her face. Her shoulders shook, and the CDs on her lap slid down onto the floor. "We swore we'd stay together for the summer! The whole summer!" She buried her face into her hands, her cries becoming even louder.

"Uh…" Nils was completely out of his element here. He'd dealt with crying girls before-Elka Doom could summon her tears at the drop of a hat- but there was a huge difference between Elka throwing a fit over him looking at Lili Zanotto for a millisecond too long and what was happening here in front of him. Crystal was honestly sad, sad for herself, and sad for her best friend, who would pretty much be on his own once she left. They probably wouldn't see each other again until the next summer if they were lucky. "Um…hey," He stood up and walked over to her, gently touching her on her trembling shoulders. "You should go sit on the bed," he said. "I won't try anything. Here…" She let him help her up and lead her back to her bunk, where she promptly went back to crying.

Oh man. She sounded so heart-broken that, had he not been such a guy, he probably would have begun tearing up himself. He looked around the cabin and telekinetically grabbed a box of tissues off the nightstand across the room. "Here," he said, feeling useful for the first time since he'd entered the cabin with her. She took the box gratefully and grabbed a tissue, blowing her nose. He couldn't help but think that it should be someone else here sitting next to her, someone better at this sort of thing, like Clem or Phoebe. Hell, even Elka had her moments. But nope. It was obviously Crystal's unlucky day, so she was stuck with him.

That didn't mean that he couldn't try. "If you're worried about Clem," he began as she sniffed, "I guess I could hang out with him. You know, from time to time." He shrugged. "We already play poker after lights out."

"You'd do that?" Crystal said shakily, her eyes wide. She scooted closer to him, close enough so that her shoulder touched his. "You wouldn't mind?"

The thought of regularly hanging out with Clem was not one that he relished. Clem Foote was the one camper with more bags than Kitty Bubai, and they were all underneath his eyes. But the promise made Crystal feel better, so he agreed to do it all the same. He'd worry about actually fulfilling the promise when the time came.

Crystal wiped her eyes with a tissue. "Thank you," she said, smiling as she balled the tissues up in her hand. "I'm really sorry about all this. I'm being such a baby right now."

"You really aren't. I don't think you're being a baby at all."

She clearly didn't agree with that statement, but she didn't bother arguing with it. "You're so nice, Nils. You don't have to stay here. I'm no fun when I'm sad." She tossed the tissue ball into a wastebasket in the far corner of the room.

"Nice shot," he said, impressed. "You can be sad if you want to. I don't mind you crying on my shoulder."

She laughed as she took another tissue. "You did say that I could on Campster."

She remembered that? Sweet. Wordlessly, he put an arm around her shoulders, bringing her closer. She let him, putting her head on his shoulder as he rubbed her back. He took a fresh tissue from the box and rolled it up into a little ball. "If I make this shot," he said, showing her the tissue ball in his hand, "you've got to kiss me." The bet was, of course, a joke, but if she was game for it…

"Ewww," she giggled. "I wouldn't want to kiss me if I were you."

"Why not? You're a fine lady."

"A fine lady with a runny nose."

Good point. "Five arrowheads, then," he said as he tossed the ball. It bounced off the rim of the basket and fell onto the floor. "Damn."

"You were really close!" Crystal said encouragingly. "You can still have those arrowheads, if you want." Her face fell. "It's not like I'll need them."

The reminder of why they were both seated here together dampened the mood like a rainstorm during Spring Break. The next minute or two passed in silence, her staring vacantly at her half-packed duffel bag and him once again uncertain of what to say.

"You know," he said when he thought of something that didn't sound completely idiotic. "This is technically a training facility. Maybe your mom won't be allowed to take you out halfway through the summer."

"But she needs me," Crystal said, squeezing her tissues. "I'm the only one who can help her. She said it herself."

"Oh." Nils ran his free hand through his hair and sighed. "This sucks."

A minute passed before she spoke again. "My Aunt lives in this state. Maybe my mom could stay with her and just visit me here. Or she could rent a hotel room…"

Nils had the feeling that she was just saying this to make him feel better rather than as a suggestion of something that she actually thought could happen. But hey. It couldn't hurt to hope.


End file.
